Saturday 6th November 1915

Front line trenches near Fauquissart.

The morning dawned very foggy which necessitated the posting of extra sentries and patrols but thereafter, at last, the weather showed some sign of improvement. Two men were wounded. Pte. Frank Turner; the details of his wounds and treatment are unknown, but he would re-join the Battalion. He was a married man with two children, from Huddersfield and had been an original member of 10DWR. Pte. Benjamin Wilson, B Company (see 11^th September), suffered a gunshot wound to his left knee, resulting in compound fractures to both his femur and tibia. He would be evacuated to 2^nd General Hospital at Le Havre. His family would be informed, by telegram, that he was ‘dangerously ill’. 

A third man, Pte. Herbert Ernest Sutcliffe (15202) was accidentally wounded by discharging his own rifle. On account of the nature of his wound, he would appear before a Field General Court Martial to be held on 8^th November. He was a 34 year-old iron moulder from Halifax; he was married, but had no children.

Pte. Albert Henry Nutter (see 7^th October) wrote a letter, extracts from which would be published in The Todmorden & District News on 12^th November;

UP TO THE NECK IN DIRT

Pte. Albert Nutter, 10^th Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, in letters to his home and relations in Mytholmroyd, says things were not too healthy at present, what with “Jack Johnsons” and other shells flying overhead, and they had to keep down. He was still in the trenches “up to the neck in dirt”. The guns had been at it all the night and the sky was lit up with a big glare. It was not in their part, so they did not know what was going on. Though he knew there were friends among the troops they had the greatest difficulty in finding them – in fact it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Those who were spared to come back to old England would be able to fill a few books with tales of what they had gone through in France. In the trenches they could not tell where half of their stuff was, as they were up to the waist in mud and water. They had not a place to lie down to sleep, but had to sleep standing up. The Germans were only a hundred yards away, but he wished they were a lot further off and in their own country, and then they would get a taste of what the English could do. Writing on 6^th November, he says he was a few days in an old fort which they had to hold at all costs if the Germans managed to get past the first trenches, but the enemy did not succeed. When he came back to England he would be able to do almost anything, as he had had experience in navvying, drain digging and unloading barges. Their equipment consisted of their pack, gas bags and goggles as a precaution against the weeping bombs of the Huns, and they had to carry them about with them whenever they went to any fresh place.

Pte. Albert Henry Nutter